IEM@ProjectNetworking revisited: freshmen students closer to professional practice

Abstract

This paper describes a challenge given to freshman students of the Integrated Master degree of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) – University of Minho, Portugal. It was developed in the context of the Integrated Project of Industrial Engineering and Management 1 (IPIEM1). First-year students were challenged to interview an Industrial Engineer, or someone with this function, in a company. That was the second time the challenge was proposed to students of this program, after the first time in 2013. The challenge, called “IEM@ProjectNetworking”, has as main idea to allow students, on their own, to establish network with an IEM active professional and to get a full picture of what could be their future career. Students worked in pairs and had a semi-structured interview guide to help them to perform the interview. All interviews were synthetized in a written report and in a summary presented orally. Thirty-three interviews were conducted and assessed by a group of teachers and researchers. Teachers believe that by presenting this challenge, students will be more focused and aware of the contents given in the courses of the following semesters. At the same time, teachers obtain a perspective of what IEM professionals are doing and update their knowledge about industry needs. In fact, many findings were obtained with this challenge, namely: 1) a company database and the connection to IEM professionals for their future contact; 2) the stimulus of students’ capacity of initiative; 3) the students learned how to prepare and conduct an interview, to communicate, to extract the most important from an interview; and; 4) the students acquire knowledge where they can work and the variety of functions which they may be engaged. The assessment was based on how the task was organised and accomplished (written report and oral presentation in pitch format). Based on the analysis of results obtained from an online survey applied to students and their feedback during the oral presentation, it is possible to state that the challenge has been mastered perfectly, with a “mission accomplished” feeling.